Screwball Billion
by difficile
Summary: The only thing Vaan learned through this ordeal was that he was, indeed, not a penguin.


**_A/N: Couldn't think of a title, so I relied on google's random phrase generator._**

**_Believe it or not, it's rude not to review._**

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**Screwball Billion**

_iv. rivalry_

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"I propose we just leave him in the Strahl," Ashe suggested quietly to the sky pirate, unaware of the eavesdropping Rabanastran around the corner of the control room – the little churl should've be asleep by then...

"N-no!" came Vaan's congested reply, and soon a bedraggled blonde stumbled out, making his entrance with a sneeze. Ashe merely quirked an unamused brow while Balthier grinned, turning back to his airship's controls as he set the security system before their outwards departure.

"Look at yourself, Vaan. You're as sick as a Lobo," Ashe pointed out, placing her hands on her hips to somehow make herself look more intimidating to the indifferent blonde opposite her.

"I know a buncha healthy Lobos," Vaan retorted with a sniffle, wrapping the blanket around him tighter. He resisted the urge to groan as another wave of aches coursed through his body, and instead settled for a cough.

"Go back to your cabin if you're just out here to argue with royalty and spread germs through my ship," Balthier sighed, turning his head minutely to the side as he addressed the pallor teen.

"But I wanna go on this hunt too!"

"Perhaps you should have considered your consequences at Bur-Omisace before sliding on your belly down a hill, across the ice, and into a pile of snow. Believe it or not, Vaan, you aren't a penguin," the sky pirate explained, standing from his pilot chair and approaching Vaan. The hunched over teen looked up at Balthier with drooped but pleading blue eyes – and he almost succeeded in winning the pirate over, if he hadn't broken his winning streak with another sneeze/groan/shiver.

Balthier's eye twitched and he shied away from the contaminated teen with a sigh.

"You're in no shape to hunt," Ashe sided with Balthier, and Vaan resisted the urge to tell the princess to shut up before he sneezed in her bras. Vaan knew damn well that Ashe was always trying to upstage him when it came to quality time with the cherished sky pirate, and that did not please him one bit. The idea of those two going on a hunt by themselves only made Vaan's headache and body temperature worsen with steadily growing jealousy.

"I jus' have a little cold—'CHOO!"

Ashe soon backed away as well, side by side with Balthier. Vaan felt his blood boil, looking at the two – curse his over-protectiveness over _his_ sky pirate.

"Precisely. Do yourself a favor and get some rest, Vaan. Balthier and I will take care of the mark."

_Oh, I bet you will…_Vaan seethed, grip tightening around the blanket to keep himself from doing the same with the princess' neck... He glowered at the two before turning on his heel and marching back to his cabin, coughing all the way.

"You better be covering that mouth of yours," Balthier called, and Vaan grumbled under his breath before shutting the door behind him. Why couldn't he just cast Curaga or Esuna and get rid of this stupid sickness? Not only did it give Ashe a perfect opportunity to be alone with Balthier for hours (although they would most likely be running from zombies dripping with rotted flesh in the Lhusu Mines and _not_ involving themselves in romantic follies), but also it kept Vaan from doing anything fun at all. Being confined to a small little cabin in an airship all alone was _not_ fun by a long shot.

Vaan groaned and collapsed on the bed, silently wishing that Penelo was there to comfort him in his time of need – but _noooo_, Penelo was on a hunt with Fran and Basch, somewhere in the Mosphoran Highwaste, wasting time over some unicorn-pig-frog hybrid…or something.

_If 'Nelo was here, _she'd_ help me get over this… and side with me on this whole situation. Plus she'd fix me soup._

_I love soup… _

Coughing into his wool blanket, Vaan soon buried his head in the pillow and shut his eyes. He tried to keep his mind away from Balthier and Ashe…together…_alone_… but it wasn't working. He hated the way Ashe looked at him – princesses aren't supposed to like sky pirates, and the same goes vise versa!

Not that Vaan was sensing vibes from Balthier to Ashe, but he always managed to fear the worst when it came to situations he was sensitive about. The pale teen bit his lip and curled into a little ball, suddenly exhausted as the thoughts lazily swirling around his head lulled him off to dreamland.

--

Vaan had no recollection of how long he was slumbering, but all he knew was that when a knock on the door roused him from sleep, he had developed an uncomfortable kink in his neck. Blue eyes, fogged with fading drowsiness, blinked at the door. Now that he was awake, Vaan noticed quite a few changes in his status.

His symptoms seemed to have lightened in the amount of time the blonde slept; he could finally breathe through one nostril instead of neither, and his throat (though still sore whenever he swallowed) had stopped its once-incessant throbbing. His half-lidded eyes strayed over to the window of his small cabin and he noted the shade of the sunlight pouring through the curtains; it was twilight…he had quite a rest.

Whoever knocked did not wait for a reply to grant access, and instead came in on their own accord. The flaxen-haired teen was expecting it to be Penelo, but he was proven wrong as a familiar and handsome sky pirate revealed himself.

"Seems that our sleeping bimbo has awakened."

"I prefer sleeping beauty…" Vaan retorted, hating how congested his voice still sounded. Balthier merely chuckled as he closed the door behind him.

"I'll consider that after you've gotten rid of that most unattractive tone to your voice."

Vaan blinked the sleep from his eyes and sat up, wincing at the pain in his neck from sleeping so haphazardly. He then glanced over at the brunette and was surprised to see a bowl of soup propped on a tray in Balthier's hands.

"Oh, for me?" Vaan chortled.

"Don't get the wrong idea, my dear – Penelo made this for you when she came back from her hunt."

"And you ended up delivering it?" the Rabanastran retorted with a grin.

"If she wasn't so preoccupied healing the wounds of our not-so-murderous captain, she'd be doting on you right now instead of me," Balthier assured, sitting on the edge of the bed and handing Vaan the tray, earning a chuckle and a quiet thanks from the sick thief.

"I kind of prefer it this way, though…" Vaan grinned sheepishly, and Balthier had no choice but to return the smile with his own coy touch to it.

As Vaan waited for the soup to cool, he leaned back against the headboard of the bed. "How did your hunt go with Ashe?"

The fact that this question earned a melodramatic roll of the eyes and a "don't even get me started with her" comment from Balthier made Vaan's heart flutter happily. Good, so no 'makeout session in the mines' occurred, he assumed.

"I'm taking that as…it didn't go well?"

Balthier leaned back on the bed, surprising Vaan a bit; he didn't expect the pirate to be even entering his room if he was sick, let alone relax on his bed. Nevertheless the blonde remained silent, enjoying the close proximity of their bodies. Balthier's arm slung across Vaan's legs as he answered,

"By the bloody gods, that woman is such a bloody _flimflam_!"

Vaan had to hold the tray across his lap to keep the soup from falling as he laughed. "Please, tell me more."

"With pleasure…We were navigating through those damned mines for over _two hours_ – that girl refuses to listen to anything but her own 'instinct'," Balthier paused to exaggerate the last word by pantomiming quotation marks with his fingers. "If she had followed _my_ suggestions, we would have found the mark in less than half the time it took her to figure out we were dead lost in the Lhusu."

"Didn't you bring a map?" Vaan inquired, enjoying this quality time with Balthier; he sensed that the russet-haired pirate needed to vent to someone, and Vaan was more than happy to keep this conversation alive if it involved ranting about a certain princess.

Balthier merely snorted, waving his hand dismissively into thin air while changing his voice an octave to mimic Ashe, " 'Maps are unreliable. If we are true warriors we will use instinct and not drawings on parchment. Follow me.'"

Once Vaan retained his composure after another round of laughter from Balthier's performance, he cleared his throat.

"…Are you _serious_?"

"Unfortunately. When we finally _did_ locate the mark, we found ourselves in quite a muddle, considering there were only two of us against quite a nasty undead giant and its seemingly endless horde of vampyrs. We had to flee, which is most unbefitting of a Queen and a Leading Man."

Vaan chuckled again, this time earning a snicker or two from Balthier. "Girls are weird."

"I wholeheartedly second that proclamation, and also wouldn't need a map myself to find my hand upside the dear girl's head… that is if it wouldn't have my own decapitated."

"We wouldn't want that."

"Oh, heavens no."

This earned yet another amused laugh from Vaan. He shared the same thoughts of Ashe sometimes that Balthier did, and it often grew frustrating that Vaan had no one to talk to about these opinions; Basch would demean him, Penelo would berate him, and Fran wouldn't say anything. Now that Vaan had a chatty, sarcastic sky pirate on his side, the thief felt slightly assured.

Dipping his spoon into the warm broth, Vaan sipped thoughtfully as silence lapsed between them.

"Feeling better, penguin?" Balthier asked, and Vaan's eyes wandered to the sky pirate to find that his eyes were closed and his head was leaned against the sash around his waist.

"I'm not a penguin," Vaan denied hotly, sipping at the broth again with a little glare; sooner or later that would be his new nickname. Balthier merely chortled again.

"With those shenanigans performed at Omisace, you had me thinking quite differently."

"It was just an experiment!" the younger explained, resisting the urge to flail his arms.

"One that cost you your health," Balthier replied in a more serious tone that hinted protectiveness and concern.

Vaan said nothing to this and continued to down his broth, feeling his headache and sore throat diminish slowly with each gulp.

"We will stay docked in Bhujerba for another two days," Balthier commented softly, and Vaan blinked.

"How come?"

A thoughtful 'hmm' came from the man adjacent to Vaan before he answered,

"Several reasons, really. We need to re-stock on potions, for one, since we wasted them all trying to keep ourselves alive in the mines. And speaking of the mines, we still have to finish off that mark once prepared, on top of the fact that you need to regain your health back to sufficient standards before resuming our quest."

Vaan finished the last drop of broth from the bowl and shrugged. "Sounds good t'me. I wanna take on that hunt tomorrow first thing, though," the bronzed teen replied, and Balthier opened his hazel eyes to smile at Vaan.

"Always a go-getter even when sick in bed, eh?"

Balthier's grin was matched with one twice the size as Vaan beamed, giving the other a wink. "Always… Hey, I'll make a bet with you, Balthier."

"Oh? Do elaborate."

"If I'm better by tomorrow morning, I get another flying lesson after dinner. And if I'm not, I won't tell Ashe what you said about her today, saving you quite a tongue lashing from both her and Basch."

"Oh, blackmail. How original," Balthier snorted, but he was still grinning. After a minute of pondering, Balthier nodded.

"All right, I'll agree. However, about the flying ordeal… I believe there is a problem."

Vaan's brow furrowed. "What?"

"Penguins cannot fly."

"_I'm not a penguin_!"


End file.
